


In Which Sollux Captor and Equius Zahhak at Approximately Fifteen Years of Age Must Overcome Their Differences and Team Up to Build a Rudimentary Hydraulic Machine in Order to Appease Their Woodshop Instructor.

by colorofmercury



Series: Shifting Gears [7]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorofmercury/pseuds/colorofmercury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>... Includes No Overt Quadrant Entanglements and Hints at High School Drama as Well as Racism and a Touching Story of the Human Cultural Leech Known as Friendship.</p><p><img/>Takes place about... nine years before SG? About that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Within the first two weeks of woodshop, you're bored to tears.

Building things like this isn't really your strong suit. But you complied, you made bridges and learned how to use the saws and got bruises on your hands from hammering that made it hard to press the space bar for days afterwards. Putting small electrical components together you could do; small-scale construction, not so much.

And you hated almost everyone in the class. It was a mixed-species school, so you constantly had to deal with trolls deciding they were better than humans and being snarky about it, and you had told them all just to <i>shut the fuck up for once</i> on more than one occasion. (Somehow you had been thanked for this the one time the teacher heard you, because he apparently mistook your impatience with the noise for a noble attempt to stop bullying.)

When this wasn't going on there would be people getting on your case about not being masculine enough to use a drill properly, or people going on about whatever kind of gossip, or really just _people talking_ , god you just wished they would shut those gaping wordpuke holes in their faces.

Nothing is interesting, everyone is obnoxious, you are so ready for this class to be over so you can take advanced web design next semester and just be bored instead of bored and annoyed.  

Three weeks before the end of the class, the teacher tells you he has a surprise project for you.

Oh the joy! How will you ever contain your excitement.

He tells you you're building a robot, but the "robot" turns out to be a wooden thing powered on hydraulics that has to pick up a marshmallow from one cup and put it in the other.

Truly you will be paving the way for brilliant innovations in the field of robotics. How the scientific community will praise you! Wow. You can't wait to get your medal for developing prime marshmallow-grabbing technology.

You miss some of what he says because you're busy mentally narrating his speech with biting remarks, and then it moves on to thinking about how genius your insults are and how great you're going to be in an argument when you've got all this material.

You didn't need to know the details, though, really: you can figure it out yourself.

The last bit of the teacher's spiel catches your attention, though.

It's right before he throws his palm down on the table as if it were a gavel, signaling the end of his participation and telling you all wordlessly that you need to start doing something.

The order had been clear but you run it through your head again just in case you misheard.

Find… a partner?

What?

No, he can't be serious.

You look around and the heavy weight of realization sets in.

Those two girls are already running at each other, hurriedly sitting in one seat and giggling the whole way.

   
Other pairs walk towards each other more casually, some exuding the assurance that they won't be denied their partner of choice, some offering a more shy, hopeful wave and question.

Oh god.

You look around the room, thinly-veiled horror on your face as you look for a sympathetic face.

There are no sympathetic faces here, dipshit, you hate them all, remember?

You could try to find someone less awful than the rest and try to make friends, but that would mean that you would risk, A, looking like you care, B, coming on too strong, and C, getting rejected.

You can probably work on this on your own. You've resorted to counting your classmates in the distant hope that there will be an odd number and you _won't_ just be added into another group, but your counting is cut short by the teacher clapping a hand over your shoulder.

"Why don't you go work with Equius? You two would get along famously."

"Who?" He has the nerve to laugh at the terror on your face.

"Equius! You know Equius, the big guy over there."

He points. You turn.

Oh.

No.

Hell no.

Hell fucking no.

It's the racist prick who apparently makes it a rule not to use words under four syllables. He also makes it a rule to look down on absolutely everyone. He makes it a rule to tell everyone how they need to improve. He makes it a rule to say words like "improve" as "improove," but you're beginning to think that might actually be an involuntary issue.

He has a lot of rules.

Rooles.

You look back up at the teacher. "I don't think he likes me very much." Which is true. He has brought attention to your blood in a ~~disaprooving~~ disapproving manner on three separate occasions, as well as your psionics, your lisp, your lack of ability with power tools, your build, your inability to pick up anything over ten pounds, and your lack of interest in large beasts of burden a number of other times. You never bothered to remember his name because _you don't like him_ and the two of you would not go together well.

The teacher just… laughs. "Oh sure he likes you! Where did you ever get that impression?" You open your mouth to tell him but he just sort of chuckles and pushes at you so you'll get up. You don't. "Just go talk to him, it won't hurt you."

Yes it will.

You are further encouraged, and you see no other options so you give in.

You walk over to him as slowly as you possibly can, just praying someone else comes along to partner up with him so you won't have to.

It's not happening.

It continues not to happen as you get closer, and eventually he notices that you're walking over to him, and pretending to look elsewhere isn't going to help your case, so you just pick up your pace.

You stop a little ways from his desk.

"… Hi." 


	2. Chapter 2

He has this look on his face that translates roughly to "what the fuck do you want," except he wouldn't use that language because it would be "lood." _Lewd_ , god damn, you're going to be hearing everything in his voice for a week just after thinking of the way he talks.

And you're actually going to have to work with him.

You don't think you can do this.

You're just about to come up with an excuse for having been there before absconding, but someone interrupts your thoughts. "Come on, guys, you're not going to get anywhere if you just stand there staring at each other," the teacher tells you, putting his pinkish mitts on you again to encourage you forward. You really wish he would stop touching you.

Equius looks up at him. "Are you suggesting we work together?"

The teacher laughs again. "Well yeah, buddy, that's the idea!" he pats your back heavily again and you lurch forward. You are now officially _too close_ to Equius. "I'll pass out the assignment sheet."

You sort of stand there for a while, and eventually you're forced to find a chair because the teacher is addressing the class again and you'll be singled out if you're still standing.

You sit the appropriate distance from Equius, which is one chair removed from him.

Eventually you have to talk again.

It's slow work, trying to discuss the project and actually agree about things, but by the end of the first day you've mostly sorted out the basics.

The next day is easier: maybe because you've succumbed to your fate and aren't still trying to figure out a way to escape, or maybe because you're just in a better mood. Regardless, the more detailed planning starts and you eventually begin to think the two of you might actually work together well, even if you don't actually get along. Despite the arguing you have similar ways of thinking, and your ideas mesh well together.

He's drawing blueprints at the end of that day.

By the third day you're in a considerably better mood and things are progressing much more quickly. You're animatedly discussing a new idea when the teacher comes by and tells you that he was right all along, and that wasn't so hard, was it?

Both of you immediately stop what you were talking about and give him a look that you were sure was more intimidating than he apparently thought. He laughs and walks away, and you and Equius look at each other and shake your heads.

It doesn't take long for the two of you to finish the machine completely. Everyone else is still struggling with redoing the designs as they build theirs because things aren't working, and you're just having difficulty working together well enough to coordinate the thing.

There had been a few stray bits of wood thrown, and a few almost-yelled arguments, and a few more just as intense murmured arguments after you'd gotten in trouble for yelling, but overall it hasn't been as bad as it could have been.

You guess.  

You have three more days of spare time in that class since you finished so early. It's boring until about halfway through the first day, when you start doodling something and Equius leans over and asks you about the functions of the machine you are designing.

Really you'd just been drawing a stupid robot with wrenches for hands, but you start making up shit about its processing power and how it was programmed to fold the tops of cardboard boxes in a particular way, and before you know it the two of you are leaning over a fresh sheet of printer paper and writing out notes and drawing components.

You haven't finished the design for this stupid thing by the time winter break comes up, but you end up writing down your email somewhere on the paper before he takes it.

By the time school gets back in the two of you have a small wealth of stupid and more or less useless designs, and have started building at least one of them because apparently Equius has a garage and can weld things.

You still can't stand him most of the time, because he is still a huge racist jerk, and you wouldn't go so far as to call him your friend.

When your first Useless Robot has been completed, though, you do go so far as to call him your partner in crime. Eventually it just simplifies to "partner," partly so you can sometimes greet him with a "howdy partner" and it will be both valid and obnoxious.

He gives you this look when you say that like he wants to flay you but you're not worth the energy, and it gives you very close to the same bubbly feeling of accomplishment that you get when you make something worthwhile.

You can tell the two of you are going to be the best of not-friends and it's going to be great.  


End file.
